Brainstorming academic writing cause/effect IELTS argumentative essay narrative essay descriptive essay comparison/contrast essay
Graphic Organizers/Pre-Writing Ideas
and Essay Writing Resources for teachers

Brainstorm worksheet: cluster diagram (PDF)

Holt Rinehart and Winston samples: Graphic Organizers
(one of the most  useful resources  on the Net for encouraging critical thinking foracademic essays)

More Graphical Organizers for Essays

Collection of  10 basic paragraph writing
lessons for ESL students (PDF)


Essay Writing Outlines

Essay outline exercise (PDF):three important qualities necessary in a good boss. and
opinion essay exercise (PDF)

One paragraph essay sample and outline

General Essay Outline (PDF)

Blank Essay Outline Form

Blank Essay Outline(word doc)

Brainstorming an Essay (PDF)

OUP Explorations 1 workbook sample- pre-writing strategies..quickwriting, cluster diagrams etc. (PDF)

Comparison/contrast outline (pdf)

Cause/Effect Outline (pdf)

Introductions, attention getters/grabbers / leads /hooks for  elementary essay writing students

Writing Your Introduction: 4 styles with examples
(word)

9 ways of  "getting the reader’s attention"

The introduction should be designed to attract the reader's attention and give them an idea of the essay's main argument (examples)

6 choices for your introduction (PDF handout
with examples)

Parallelism sentence writing exercises

4  different kinds of  parallel structure recognition
exercises for parallel structure ***

3 kinds of faulty parallelism exercises

Parallelism :Rewrite the underlined word (PDF)

Parallelism: Rewrite the following sentences using parallel sentence structure p.15 (PDF)

Rewrite the sentences so they are parallel (PDF)

Read through the parallel series below and circle the element in each that is not parallel

Read the following example sentences and revise any that do not use parallel structure PDF)

Rewrite the faulty sentences using parallel structure
(advanced) (word)

Faulty Parallelism: correct the faulty parallelism in the following sentences.(PDF)


Exercises for Topic Sentences

Put a ring around the letter that corresponds to what you think is the topic sentence(PDF)

Choose the best topic sentence and concluding sentence (PDF)

Guide to topic sentences and paragraphs (word)
(see Power Paragraphs)

Choosing topic sentences (PDF)

For each topic sentence, list four details that support the sentence.

For each limited topic below, select the two items that could serve as topic sentences

Rewrite the following paragraphs by joining simple sentences into complex and compound ones

One sentence in each of the following pairs is the topic sentence. (PDF)

Identifying main idea, topic sentences
supporting sentences worksheets


Find the topic sentence and main idea in
paragraphs (PDF)

Exercises for writing topic and support sentences


Finding the main idea in paragraphs

Write the main idea for each list of words (PDF)

Write the common subject for each group of words (or "write a good title for each list").

Read the paragraph and the list of details and then write the main idea.

Read the short paragraphs and select the main idea

Finding, underlining and writing the main idea


Writing Test

Elementary writing test (pdf)..testing topic sentences,
sentence order etc.
Mistake Log

In order to fill in this log, you need to consult the work that you have had marked so far and identify the mistakes that you make most frequently (word)